New Milford tops Immaculate 20-17

NEW MILFORD -- Though its running game was slowed most of the night by a banged up offensive line, New Milford never had much trouble throwing the ball when it needed to.

Senior quarterback John Krafick put New Milford ahead with a 38-yard touchdown pass to Brian Kirwan-Welsh with 1:51 left in the game, and the Green Wave held on to defeat Immaculate 20-17 Friday night.

The win ends the Green Wave's three-game losing streak, and is their first since upsetting Brookfield 20-16 in the season opener.

After coming from behind to beat Joel Barlow last week, Immaculate failed to win back-to-back games for the first time this season and falls to 1-4.

Immaculate had the ball on New Milford's 14-yard line with 2:30 left in the game, leading 17-13, but on fourth down the Mustangs threw an incomplete pass off a fake field goal.

"I thought about kicking the field goal; I probably should have," said Immaculate coach Roger Hancock. "But at that point the defense had been playing well."

On the first play of New Milford's ensuing drive, Krafick completed a screen pass to Keith Kirwan-Welsh that went for 48 yards down the sideline.

On the very next play from Immaculate's 38, New Milford faked the screen again before Krafick threw a perfect pass to Keith's brother Brian in single coverage.

"(The screen pass) set that up," said Krafick. "Brian called for it, but then we faked the screen and went deep."

Immaculate got the ball back with 1:44 at their own 34-yard line, but quarterback Pat Fahey threw three incompletions and was sacked by New Milford captain Rory Kennedy on fourth down.

Krafick was 6-of-10 and threw two interceptions, but only one of his completions went for less than 11 yards.

In addition to his two passes on the go-ahead drive, he completed a 58-yard touchdown to Keith Kirwan-Welsh to tie the game at seven and a 41-yard pass to Don Clady that set up John Kimberly's 3-yard touchdown to cut Immaculate's lead to 14-13.

"He only practiced a few days this week because he hurt the AC joint in his shoulder," said New Milford coach Chuck Lynch of Krafick, whose 200 yards passing are the most he's had this season. "But he came up big. He showed me a lot today."

His performance helped save New Milford, which ran for 70 yards on 32 carries and was playing only two of its starters on the offensive line by the end of the game.